


Fisherwife

by tokyoblackbird



Series: Albatross [4]
Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-05
Updated: 2014-10-05
Packaged: 2018-02-19 23:02:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2406113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tokyoblackbird/pseuds/tokyoblackbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which mermaids. One-shot. AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fisherwife

_When you runaway, you can go anywhere._

\- Mr. Little Jeans, "Runaway" (Wavves Remix)

* * *

Even before Kurogane was halfway down the cliff, he could see someone bobbing in the water, alternatively watching him, alternatively submerging for dizzying lengths of time.

Kurogane had never spoken to a stranger. The only person he had ever known was his father. He was overcome with a sudden gruff shyness.

Over a century ago, the entire village had abandoned Baron Vandy when the farmlands flooded. Waves flattened barley, cabbages were washed out to sea. The earth was salted. The villagers took everything they owned, packed on the bony backs of their livestock.

Only fisherwoman Lorraine left behind a gift. A net woven from her own white hair.

She saw the Baron and his young son standing by their castle on the cliff, watching the mass exodus into the forest. Distant relations to a distant king who had long forgotten them, the pair looked wind-whipped and lost, shabby. Merchants avoided the rough seas around Fishermen's Bed, shied from the steep surrounding mountains. The Baron and his son would soon be alone.

The Baron flinched at her unnatural green stare, despite the pity in her expression. His childhood was full of stories of wrathful, disguised gods.

"Give this to him when he comes of age," she said. "Go fishing."

The Baron took the net, head bowed, until the fisherwoman joined the rest.

* * *

Kurogane stopped at the foot of the stairs, hesitant, the net heavy in his hands. The narrow, rocky beach and the inlet called Fisherman's Bed were spread out before him, tinted with sunset colors.

The creature in the water disturbed the colors with its lazy swimming. It smiled. "You don't need that," it called. "I've been waiting."

"Do you know me?"

"I know you, Kurogane, son of Shizue." It beckoned with a long finger. "Come closer. Into the water."

"Shizue…" His mother had left a year after he was born. His father never spoke of her.

Kurogane took off his coarse leather boots and walked, barefoot, to where the sand grew damp and the sea licked his toes. Cold.

"You come here," Kurogane said. "I want to see you properly."

The creature cast him a look askance. It submerged.

It reappeared suddenly with the tide, with a splash at his feet, stretched out upon the sand. Kurogane startled back, almost falling. He could see its back, its spine, streaked with greens and blues, glittering with droplets. Its shoulders were white as waves breaking, under a tangle of fair hair. Its ribs rose and fell with easy breath.

The creature reached out and trailed a slow finger down Kurogane's shin before slipping back into the sea with the incoming tide.

After a long, still moment, its voice came again, gentle as a salt breeze. "Come," it called. "Come into the water. Don't make me wait."

There was a flash of darker green skin where hips met iridescent tail, and then the tail itself, splayed for just an instant like a lady's lace fan. The creature dove and disappeared.

Kurogane found himself knee deep in the inlet. He hadn't realized he'd been walking.

The sun was setting. Now the surrounding cliffs grew blue with evening shadow.

A hand yanked Kurogane's ankle and he fell, dragged into deep water. His cry of alarm rose to the surface, a string of pearls.

The creature rolled on top of him, blocking out the light. Its tail wrapped around his legs with a serpent's squeeze; its hips pushed against his hips. At such proximity, Kurogane saw that the creature was male, and very beautiful. It had green eyes. It bumped his nose with its nose.

They embraced, even as bubbles streamed out of Kurogane's nostrils. They kissed. Kurogane felt the slip of tongue as he gasped and choked.

In his mind's eye, he could see his gray-haired father sitting in the grand dining hall. Breathing deeply, father smiled with satisfaction at the the smell of roast meats and pastries that took the entire day to make. For starters, a pewter bowl of thick tomato soup, savory and sour. The pine table had been repainted for the first time in seventeen years. For the first time in seventeen years, the table was set for three.

The dancing of the candelabra flames...

"Why didn't you catch another?" Kurogane had snapped before he left. "If you had another son, you wouldn't have to work so hard. Old fool."

"My son..."

"How can you be so impractical?"

Kurogane had none of his father's wistfulness.

* * *

When they broke the surface, the first thing Kurogane heard was the merman's laughter. "You're warm, like the sun is inside you." It tugged at Kurogane's pants, slipped them down, to Kurogane's chagrin. "Come to bed with me, fisherman." Bared teeth.

The cloth sunk quickly, weighed down by the knife strapped to the belt.

"I'm supposed to bring home a bride," Kurogane said indignantly.

The merman lifted Kurogane's shirt, curiously. Pressed its lips to his collarbone.

"Stop that! My father is preparing a feast for a bride."

"Up."

Kurogane raised his arms and the merman removed Kurogane's shirt. They exchanged a long, hard kiss that tasted of salt. The sun was a red line at the horizon, both sky and sea a blue-purple, like a cut. A chill was setting in. The merman repeated, "Fathers can wait."

They hung there, floating in the cooling water, held aloft by the slow beating of translucent fish tail. A pair of peregrine falcons emerged from the cliffs to hunt, their sickle-shaped silhouettes circling, bracing for a dive. Kurogane wondered how much his father could see from the castle on the cliff, and when he would start looking.

The merman pressed a finger to Kurogane's lips, pushed against teeth, traced a line down Kurogane's chin. The light stubble seemed to fascinate. The merman pressed his lips to it. Licked. The scratch of sharp teeth on his jaw, on his neck. The merman's breath was cold.

The hand slipped down Kurogane's chest, carelessly flitting by Kurogane's hammering heart. The fingers curved briefly around his hip, pinched the curve of his waist. Fingers wrapped around his cock.

"Yes?" The thumb rubbed slow circles.

Kurogane closed his eyes. He rested his head on the merman's shoulder, shivering.

"Kurogane."

"I-"

"Kurogane, son of Shizue." A kiss on the cheekbone, just under the eye. A kiss on the hard bony bump of the throat. The other hand had settled on the small of Kurogane's back. The merman touched him, made his breath hitch.

Kurogane's fingers dug into the merman's shoulder blades.

For the first time, in a long time, he was afraid.

"Oh my god," he breathed, though the chapel was overrun with ivy and Kurogane had never prayed in his life. "Fuck."

And the merman said, slick between its smile, "Make me your wife."

* * *

When they reached the shore, Kurogane collapsed in the sand. With dim fascination, he watched the merman drag itself out of the water and peel off its scales. Like slices of glass, they crumbled under the slightest touch, became indistinguishable from sand. The tail itself began to dissolve with each wash of the tide, the green skin dissolving like ink. And then the merman was admiring his new legs, long and white, streaked with greens and blues; wiggling toes.

He saw Kurogane watching and spread his legs, laughing, his sex hanging like strange pink fruit.

"Marry me," the merman said. "I want to see how you live. Bring me home."

"You're a man…"

"My name is Fai."

Fai beckoned and against his better judgement, Kurogane moved to him. Sand stuck to his knees. Gingerly, he placed a hand on Fai's chest and under his touch, Fai slowly sank back into the sand, all the time, watching him. He was beautiful, beautiful. Now both of Kurogane's hands were on Fai, callouses on silk and Kurogane was reminded of a tale, of the Pearl of Great Worth.

"I'll be good to you. I'll stay by your side as long as you live," Fai murmured. No pearl could have been more beguiling.

"For centuries...we have caught mermaid brides and they have given us sons. I need a bride. I need a son."

Peaceably perched on a boulder, a peregrine falcon bit into a seagull. Its claws were like sickles. A wayward breeze scattered feathers.

A bloody feather fell and caught in Fai's hair. "I'll help you. Do you want me?"

"I…" Kurogane had never had a lover. Just the feeling of touching someone alive, breathing, just rubbing his hand slowly up and down Fai's smooth arm, was a beautiful, alien pleasure. He wanted so badly, his finger bones ached. "We've never left this castle. I can't leave my father." He took the feather, a memento.

"Take me places," Fai said. "I want to see the world with you."

"My father...would never leave. There's too many...He's still waiting for..."

"Do you want me, Kurogane?" Fai pulled Kurogane down and nestled against his chest, humming contentedly at the warmth.

"Yes."

"Be brave." Fai shifted in Kurogane's arms. "Look."

At first it seemed like a star detached and was descending. Kurogane realized it was a lantern. "Kurogane," called his father from the top of the stone staircase.

The peregrine took flight.

Slowly, Kurogane sat up, rose to his feet. He was naked. He had lost the magic net in the ocean some time ago.

"Be brave," urged Fai.

Kurogane's father froze when he caught sight of them. The lantern lent the pair an ethereal air and he felt as if he had stumbled upon gods, or the dead. Fai especially, with his gold hair, surrounded by bloodied gull feathers, looked beatific, like an angel of death.

"Father," Kurogane said. "I have been reconsidering practicality."

Fai smiled.

 


End file.
